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Sunday, 11 February 2018

From Draft... to Published | Afternoon Tea :: With the Prime Minister

Looking through my draft posts, I have realised that there are so many that are in various states of completion. I don't know why I never finished some of these, and so I am aiming in the first part of this year to go through them all, and either finish and publish them, or abandon and delete them. I have decided not to re-word any that were already written, which means some of them may refer to the situation as it was when they were written (where I worked for example) but I want to maintain the post as it was originally intended. So here is the first of my From Draft to Published posts: Afternoon Tea at the Houses of Parliament.

Ok ok, not really with the Prime Minister, but at the House of Commons.

A couple of weeks ago my mum and I went to the Houses of Parliament (or the HoP as I refer to them at work!) for a tour and afternoon tea.

It was really interesting to experience the tour because I book many many guided tours for our student groups and now I know exactly what they get to experience. It's probably not really a revelation to say that they are super interesting. So much history has gone down in those walls! You're not allowed to take photos inside, except in Westminster Hall. This is the first area that you enter, the oldest part of the Palace of Westminster and houses numerous plaques laid into the floor commemorating important events or notable people.

Both House of Commons and House of Lords were much smaller than I had thought they'd be. The TV definitely makes the rooms look larger. The audio commentary was full of little extra stories and facts about the decor and traditions that still take place in the hallowed halls.

After the tour, we gathered with the rest of the diners to be taken down to the cafe. This was down below the commons area and looked out onto the river. Despite the the weather not being great -the water looked pretty choppy - it was still nice to look out over the water. The food was ok, a pretty standard selection of sandwiches, cakes and scones. The tea likewise was fine. It was a fairly cheap options for afternoon tea, and we did have an incident with the waitress pouring the tea out far too early when it clearly wasn't brewed enough.

I think that this is a quite a unique experience, and fairly good value (although you can only get the afternoon tea in combination with the tour). I wouldn't rush back, but I don't regret going.